


we'll be a fine line

by okliv



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A little bit of everything, A series of one shots, AU they're dancing, Alternate Universe, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben is SOLID, Ben is headass for Rey but are we surprised, Breakup AU, Canon Compliant, Ch 1 is post-TROS, Ch 2 is pre-TFA force bond, Ch 3 is AU, Ch 4 is AU, F/M, Fine Line, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Harry Styles - Freeform, Hate Sex, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Inspired by Music, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey Solo, Rey is Not a Palpatine, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, and SMUT, at a Bar, each chapter will be a different one shot inspired by a song from Fine Line, it's gonna hurt at first but i promise it will get better, post-TROS therapy, starting off in canon and then going!alternate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21909430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okliv/pseuds/okliv
Summary: A series of one-shots, inspired equally by Harry Styles’s masterpiece of an album, Fine Line, and of course, The Rise of Skywalker.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 26
Kudos: 100





	1. Falling

**Author's Note:**

> let's kick this off with some canon-compliant Falling

In her dreams, she’s always falling. 

She tumbles into an unnamed darkness, so deep and so empty. 

She runs and runs as hard as she can, but she always trips. 

She falls to her knees in a room filled with wreckage, nothing she can do to keep her on her own two feet. 

That dream goes one of two ways. 

She falls to her knees onto the cold, hard metal floor, keeling over as her last breath leaves her body. That dream always ends right then and there, with a sharp inhale jolting Rey awake in her bed. Reminding her that she can breathe, she can stand, she’s alive. 

Sometimes she’s in that same room, falling to her knees as her heart drops down in that empty darkness. It isn’t her corpse lying on the cold floor anymore. 

It’s Ben’s. 

That version of the dream is worse. A lot worse. 

It’s that dream that comes to Rey tonight, as she’s finally stolen a few hours of sleep, eyes burning too hard to stay open another minute. She hasn’t been sleeping lately, not really. She tries. But Tatooine is too hot, too quiet. And she finds that in the moments she’s closest to tipping over the precipice into the relief of unconsciousness, he comes to her most clearly. 

The days are long and hard when every minute is spent trying not to think of him, and they’re made much longer when staying awake is the only way _ not _ to think of him. 

Tonight it’s him, solid and clear. Empty. Lifeless. 

She sprints across the room towards him, that inextricable bond acting as a magnet, even in her dreams, even without him here. 

Rey can feel her knees ache as she slams down onto the ground next to him, bending over to lay her hands on his chest. No movement, no beating heart. 

A desperation takes hold deep in her chest, just as it always does at the moment she realizes she’ll never be able to reach him again. Her tiny hand clutches his massive one, fingers interwoven. 

It’s still warm. 

Rey stares down at his face, his perfect face. It finally looks free. At peace, even. He looks a way she’d never seen before the day she lost him. Free of the vigilant restraint that kept Ben Solo constantly contained, with or without the mask. She runs a thumb along his cheekbone. 

“Ben.”

It comes out a whisper as her tears fall onto his shirt, soaking into its softness. She said it before, just moments before. The last time she called him by his name it was with a spirit of pure hope. 

This time, it comes out a lament. 

Rey leans over to press her head into his neck, solid and all too still. She knows how the rest of the dream goes. She presses a kiss into his jaw, running the hand that isn’t holding his through his hair before he goes. Her fingers wander through his hair as he begins to dematerialize, becoming less and less real beneath her. She stays pressed as close as she can, breathing in the last of him as he fades away. 

In what feels like an instant, he is gone. Rey is left with nothing but that soft black shirt, that goddamn shirt, in her hands. 

She crumples into herself, head against her knees as she clutches the shirt as tight as she can. The sobs take over, and the room starts to spin. 

She’s falling again. 

Rey awakens with a jolt in her own bed. 

Her body is so tense, she realizes, and she tries to even her breathing as she sinks back down into her pillow. It’s soaking wet. And so is the black shirt in Rey’s hands. 

She sniffs and wipes her cheeks off with the palm of her hand, rolling over to face the wall. The quiet of the night scares her, making her soft sniffles echo all around the tiny room. 

Her heart rate slows down until she thinks she might be able to sleep again. Likely not, though. _ He  _ is in her head now. She’d rather watch herself die in her dreams every night until the day she really does die than watch him die one more time. Every dream of him fading away hurts as bad as it did the first time, when it was all too real. 

Rey pulls her knees up to her chest and holds onto the shirt tighter, bringing it up to her nose and breathing in deep. Smells like him. Musk and sweat and something just a little bit like peppermint. 

“Ben…” she mumbles, eyes half-lidded in sleep. “Why?”

The why contains multitudes; why did he follow her to that awful planet, why did he trade his life for hers, why did he leave her here alone, why does she have to go on without him. 

Why was it always him?

“Rey.”

The deep voice echoes through the room, and Rey scrambles up in bed, looking around in the dark. 

“Ben.”

It’s him. Not really him, but a vision of him, a familiar blue light surrounding his figure as he sits in a chair opposite her bed. She says his name with hope, but not with the smile she had the first time. With eyes wide and mouth hanging open in shock, this time. 

He crosses the room and comes to sit on the end of her bed, placing a soft hand on her calf. The bed should sink under his weight, but it doesn’t. She knew it wouldn’t, but it makes her heart break, knowing he really isn’t real, he really isn’t here, not in the way she needs him to be. 

“I… I don’t know what to say to you,” she says, blinking the tears out of her eyes. 

Ben Solo nods, looking down at the floor. He looks like he did the last time she saw him: open, free, softer somehow. He frowns and looks back at her. 

“I had to do it, you know.” He says it softly, and with a smile in the edge of his voice. His eyes are kind, staring into her heartbroken ones. “They needed you. The world needed you.”

“But I need you, Ben.” It feels so good to finally say it to him, even if it’s only like this. “I need you. I don’t know who I am without you.” A sob wracks her body, and she’s speaking to him through gritted teeth, still in a hushed tone to match the silence surrounding them for miles. 

“I’m falling, Ben. I don’t know what to do.” She shakes her head, knowing how tragic she sounds, but it’s true, it’s all true. “What am I now, Ben? What am I without you? You said it yourself, we’re a dyad. I can’t go on without you. I can’t.”

He smiles, actually smiles, and moves up the bed to be closer to her, holding her face in his hands. She leans into his palm, letting his thumb wipe away the tears that won’t stop coming. One hand wraps around to cradle the back of her neck, and she feels her entire body ease in the familiarity of it. 

“I miss you, too.” He practically whispers it, leaning his forehead down to press against hers. 

“That’s it?” She asks, shutting her eyes and breathing him in. “I can hardly stand to be around myself, Ben. It’s all you, in my head, in my dreams… you broke my heart.”

“I know.” His voice cracks as he says it, pulling back just an inch to look her in the eyes. “But… I get the feeling that you’ll never need me again.”

Rey’s brow furrows and her mouth opens as she looks into those brown eyes, his hand tenderly running up and down her back now. 

“How could you say that?” she asks, shaking her head. 

“You’ll move forward. You will,” he says, watching as her face is covered with disbelief. “The Resistance needs you, and you’ll move forward with them. You won’t need me there. You never did before.”

Rey shakes her head. “Maybe not, but you were always there. In my head. It’s so empty without you there.”

“Always stopping into each other’s lives at the worst moments,” he says, a grin pulling up one corner of his mouth. 

“I need you there. I-” she doesn’t know if she can say it. But she knows she won’t ever have the chance, not again. She inhales and looks him in the eyes. “When I kissed you, I didn’t think it would be the last time. I thought it would be the first.”

She watches as Ben swallows a lump from his throat and his eyes gloss over with tears. “I know,” he says in a shaky breath. “We can’t have our future together, and I know it’s my fault. But you still have a future, and I need you to go on with it. For me.”

Rey squeezes her eyes shut as tears fall down onto his wrinkled old shirt sitting in her lap. Looking back at him, she knows it’s true. He didn’t die so that she could mope on Tatooine for the rest of her life. But,

“I don’t know how to live without you.”

“You will,” he nods with the faintest glimmer of a smile crossing his face, and it makes Rey feel like he really does know. That she can do it. That she can get up tomorrow and get on with it, go back to the Resistance, figure out where they all go from here. 

She sighs. “I will.”

Ben smiles, for real this time, and leans towards her. Rey laces her arms around his neck, holding him tight as he closes the gap between them. 

His lips meet hers, and it feels like the first time all over again. Except this time, it’s less hurried, less desperate. He moves slowly with her, brushing his lips across hers over and over again, along her jaw, down her neck, hands weaving into her hair. She pulls his mouth back up to hers, softly biting down on his bottom lip, soaking every sensation in as they lean back against the pillows together. 

His weight settles over her, and he feels so real, even if he isn’t. Rey stretches her arms around his back as her tongue slides though his lips. A soft moan rumbles in the back of his throat as he lets her in, all fire and peace and heaven together. 

Moments, or minutes, or hours later, Rey pulls back to look Ben Solo in the eyes, pressing her hands to either side of his face. He looks perfect above her, hair falling around his face like a halo. Her heart falls in her chest as she sees the hint of a blue glow, reminding her that he can’t be hers forever, not like this. 

“Stay tonight,” she murmurs, hands weaving in his hair, her lips brushing his even as she says it. “Tomorrow I’ll… I’ll go on.” Her breath hitches as she says it, and she takes in every expression that crosses his face. His damn puppy dog eyes are soft on her face. “But I need you here tonight.”

Ben nods, leaning in close to tenderly kiss her lips, lingering there even as he breathes out, “Okay.”

The move together, fire and ice, peace and violence, until the binary suns cross the horizon. Rey drifts into sleep in Ben’s strong arms just as the soft morning light begins to enter the room, casting everything grey. 

Ben fades away, and Rey tumbles into the deepest sleep she’s had in weeks, falling again. No dreams wake her up this time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... how are we all feeling? I, for one, am feeling very poorly. 
> 
> Since this album and this movie are the two things consuming my life right now, I figured why not combine them? As soon as I listened to this MASTERPIEce of an album, so many scene ideas popped into my head, and now that we've all seen TROS, they're so much more real. Each chapter will be inspired by a different song. Wanted to go in order, but also wanted to just get this out there right now. It's a bit of personal TROS ending therapy, which I feel like we all are in need of. 
> 
> If this goes well, I'd love to do it with other albums! Norman fucking Rockwell, anyone? Accepting any and all suggestions. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, please :) it makes my day brighter, which is much-needed in this post-Ben Solo world we live in.


	2. She

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little pre-TFA force bond action, anyone? to the tune of SHE, my favorite song from the album, if you couldn't tell by this chapter...

At midnight, Ben Solo rolls over in his bed and finds a girl lying next to him. 

She’s asleep, completely serene. Brown hair loosely pulled into three buns straight down the back of her head. A light smattering of freckles across the nose. Lips slightly open, tan skin, and a dirt smudge on her cheek. 

He’s never seen her before, but something about her seems… familiar. 

She exhales and the tiny pieces of hair hanging around her face flutter. Ben goes completely still, afraid to move and make any noise at the risk of disturbing the girl. She looks a type of peaceful he’s never felt before. 

It’s beautiful. 

A part of Ben’s mind is awake in a way it never has been before, and he shuts his eyes for a moment, reaching out to the Force. That’s what put her here, he can feel it. He opens his eyes and tries not to think too hard about it. 

He doesn’t want her to go away. 

Slowly, Ben begins to untense his body and sink into the mattress, never looking away from the mysterious girl. Her white tunic is ajar on her shoulder, and Ben takes in the smooth skin there, using every bit of restraint to keep from reaching out to touch it. 

He silently rolls onto his belly, folding his arms and resting his head on them to face her. The sheets beneath him rustle, and the girl must hear it. She rolls flat onto her back, letting out the slightest groan. Ben’s stops breathing, holding air tight in his throat and praying that she doesn’t open her eyes. 

He’s scared of what she’ll do when she sees him. 

But she doesn’t see him, not tonight. Her breathing falls back into the rhythm of sleep, and Ben keeps staring for as long as he can. After minutes, hours, god knows how long - something pulls in the back of Ben’s mind. He feels her go before he sees her go, watching as she slowly fades away from him, leaving that half of the bed as empty as it had been before. That piece of Ben’s mind that the Force had been filling empties as well, leaving a void Ben had never felt before but is unmistakable now. 

He leans over and touches the sheets where she had been. They’re warm. 

Ben falls back against the pillows and stares at the ceiling of his quarters on the First Order base. Who was that girl? Why had the Force put her in his bed, of all places?

He can’t sleep, too consumed by her to let his brain rest enough to fall back into unconsciousness. Absentmindedly, Ben grabs the sheets she had been on and pulls them to his chest, weaving his fingers through them. He pulls them up to his face, breathing them in. 

They smell like her. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does. It smells like fresh air, cinnamon, and sunshine, somehow. 

Sleep finally finds him again, after an eternity. He wakes in the morning just like that, sheets clutched in his hands, pressed to his nose, breathing her in all night long.

He prays to see her again tonight. 

\----

The girl doesn’t come to him again that night, or any of the nights after. He sees her again as he paces at the head of a boardroom table, his minions sitting all around him, anxiously waiting for orders. A disturbance makes currents in the Force, and the back of his mind turns on again. He paces to the end of the room, taking a deep breath. When he turns around, there she is. 

She’s walking somewhere. Hiking, maybe. Seems like she’s going uphill. A sheen of sweat covers her entire body, making her glow, and her face is set in determination. The serenity that characterized her face when she was asleep in his bed is gone, replaced by a fierceness only earned from years of survival in an environment working against you. 

Ben is familiar with that expression. 

“Sir, have we considered every angle from which the strike would be most efficient?” Hux asks, fucking Hux. 

Ben shoots a hand out, choking him for just a moment through the Force to shut him up. That’ll keep the rest of the room from opening their mouths, too. Ben doesn’t dare reply to Hux. The girl can’t hear him, can’t know he’s watching her. 

He’s wearing his mask. If she sees him, she’ll be horrified. She’ll scream and she’ll run and she’ll shut down whatever this channel is that runs between them. At least when he was lying in bed, he was just Ben, no mask to keep him hidden and to frighten his subordinates into subordination. 

He gets that feeling that the girl wouldn’t be so averse to Ben Solo. 

She stops moving, looking around as if she’s reached the top of the hill. He can’t see the environment around her, but judging by the grains of sand tumbling out of her hair and her clothes, she’s on a desert planet somewhere. Her eyes squint as she narrows in on where’s she’s headed next, a hand raised to her brow line to block out the sun. 

She’s glowing, Ben thinks. 

The First Order generals are glancing around at each other, wondering why Kylo Ren has gone completely still, hardly even breathing. It comforts Ben to know they can’t see her too. That she lives in his daydreams, not theirs. 

She sets off again and begins to fade. He watches her until the moment she disappears, swallowed by the other side of the hill she’s descending and the Force’s closing of whatever current it is that links them. 

Ben finally puts the arm that had been outstretched to choke Hux down, circling around to the head of the table once more. His breathing is heavy. 

“It’s foolish of you to think that I have not considered my options, General Hux,” Ben says, watching as Hux’s face sets into a deep scowl. “We strike at dawn. My order is final.” He slams a fist against the table and dismisses the generals, finally alone once more. 

She’s all he thinks about for the rest of the day.

\---

She comes to him more often now, sometimes just for a few seconds, sometimes for a few minutes. One time she lay asleep next to him for nearly an hour. Ben was exhausted the next day, taking it out on everyone who crossed his path. 

He doesn’t know who she is. He’s tried to figure it out, piecing things together from the minuscule clues he’s offered, but all he has to work with is dust and sand, gruel looking food left on the corner of her mouth, and the fact that she always seems to be sweaty and dirty. Still beautiful, always beautiful. But always sweaty. 

It’s nothing to work with. She seems like a nobody. She never talks to anyone, and her habits only involve walking, working, eating, and sleeping. He wonders why they’re connected: Kylo Ren, the most powerful man in the galaxy, and this… scavenger girl. 

He doesn’t mind it, though. Not a bit. 

She’s the first one he sees when he opens his eyes in the morning, whether she’s actually there or not. He can’t get anything done; she lives in his daydreams, constantly surrounding him. A woman who lives in his head, who sleeps in his bed. 

\----

“Prepare my ship,” Ben booms down the hallway through the muffling of his mask.

“Will you need a fleet, sir?”

“No,” Ben says, waving Hux off. “I’m going alone. No one follows me.”

“Yes, sir,” Hux says, scrambling off. 

Ben reaches out to pull his saber towards him through the force, securing it in his belt as he marches towards his TIE silencer. Stormtroopers are flipping switches, opening the gate, and buzzing all around, parting like the Red Sea as Ben stomps through. 

“May I ask where you’re headed, sir?” Stupid Hux, back again. Ben feels a sharp rage spike in his chest. 

“NO!” he yells, throwing a hand out to the side to toss Hux backwards as he screams. “I do not need whatever meager assistance you think you could provide, general. Don’t forget that I am your leader. You do not question me.”

He has a tough time swallowing down the anger that continue to bubble up in his chest looking at Hux’s disgusted expression as he lies crumpled on the ground. Whatever. This is his mission, not theirs. 

Ben climbs into his ship and fires it up, the last of the First Order crew scrambling off and wishing him luck on his mission as they trample over each other to get down the stairs. They all think he’s on his way to kill some enemy, or forge some alliance… they’re all wrong. But how would they know any better? He can’t tell them where he’s headed, even if he wanted to. Wouldn’t know what to say. 

He flies into space, plugging coordinates into the system for any desert planet he can think of. Tatooine, Pasana, Jakku…

He’s going to find her. 

\----

She comes to him again as he’s flying, descending towards Pasana. Ben immediately shifts the ship into autopilot so that he can devote his full attention to the girl sitting cross-legged in his empty copilot seat. 

She looks different this time. Sadder. The peace and determination that have characterized her face every time before is gone, replaced by a deep sadness that brings out the wrinkles forming around her eyes. She seems to be scratching into something, like she’s making a mark. She leans back and sighs, staring at whatever she just did. 

Ben is completely still, unmoving like always. He doesn’t know if she’s able to see him, or if this current only runs one way. One time when she was in his bed, her eyes fluttered open just a tiny bit, and he swore she looked into his eyes. 

But then she only closed them again and rolled over, with a hint of a smile on her face. So, he doesn’t know. But he does know that he doesn’t want to chance losing her. 

Her eyes fill with tears, one falling over the edge and tracing its way down her dirty face. Ben wants to reach out and wipe it away with his leather-gloved hand. She swallows hard and shakes her head, looking like she’s resolved not to cry any more. The girl wipes her eyes with the palms of her hands, shaking her head and taking a deep breath. 

When she finally looks up, she sees him. 

Their eyes lock for a fleeting moment, and complete terror washes over Ben’s entire body. Her hazel eyes go wide and her mouth drops open with a small gasp in the millisecond before Ben uses every ounce of his energy to shut the current of the Force out of his mind. 

Usually, she slowly fades away. This time, she’s gone in an instant. 

Ben collapses back into his seat with the energy of it. He squeezes his eyes shut, reaching deep into his mind to close off whatever connection it is between them. He grabs onto that cosmic feeling of elation that brings her to him and shuts it down, stopping the Force’s flow of energy with his entire will. 

“What am I doing…” he mumbles, running his hands through his hair. He immediately pulls the ship out of autopilot and raises the altitude, yanking the controls up and away from Pasana, not daring to get any closer to the desert planet. 

What was he expecting? To find her out of the millions of people living on hundreds of desert planets? And then what? Sweep her into his arms and bring her to the First Order to keep in his bedroom? 

No. She’s better off without him. And he won’t dare push whatever this thing is holding them together. In fact, he might as well cut it off altogether. 

He flies away with a stone cold expression on his face, vowing never to see the girl again. 

But still, he can’t stop glancing back at the seat where she had been. 

\----

“The two were accompanied by a girl.”

The vision of _ her _ immediately springs to his mind, and his hand shoots out just as quickly, yanking the bearer of bad news towards him a force choke too aggressive to be reasonably justified. She’s the justification. 

He holds the general by the throat, practically shaking with rage as he spits out, “What  _ girl _ ?”

He knows it’s her. It has to be her. It’s always her. 

She’s still coming to him, but only in daydreams now, no longer through the Force. He’s working harder than ever to keep her out, feeling a prodding at the back of his mind even as he watches the general start to turn blue. 

“A Jakku girl- a no- nobody, sir,” the man says, struggling for air. 

Kylo Ren drops him to the ground and storms away, running his saber through the wall and letting out a guttural scream for good measure. His worst fear is confirmed: it’s her. Jakku, of course it has to be her. He can practically see the sand falling from her hair and the sun shining on her face. It all makes sense. 

Now all of his own ships are out to get her. He had wanted to pick her up in his own ship mere weeks ago, and now that she’ll surely end up in his possession, he couldn’t want her any less. 

She’s perfect. A perfect vision of an unattainable future, a girl so out of reach that she remains a mystery, which is exactly how Ben wants her to stay. 

She can’t get too close to him. Not like this, not like Kylo. He knows it won’t end well if she does.

\----

Sleep doesn’t come easy that night. Not when Ben spends every second keeping the wall up through the Force to keep the girl out of his mind, out of his bed. Not only does she make Ben weak, but she puts herself in danger by showing up in his life. He won’t allow it; not for her, not for him. Better she stays a mystery, a girl he doesn’t know anything about. Not who she is, not where she is, none of it. 

Ben finally drifts off into sleep only to wake up a few hours later with two problems facing him: the girl in his bed, and an erection so large it’s tenting the sheets. 

He lets out the start of a groan of frustration, cutting himself off before it can get out, remembering that he can’t wake her. He let his walls down, and now here she is. She’s not a dream now, even though she was alive in his dreams just moments before. Probably what caused the second problem. 

He tries not to look at her, but it proves impossible. She’s just too… magnetic. 

She lies facing him on her side, hands beneath her head. Her breathing is slow and steady, practically melodic. Doesn’t look like she’ll be waking up anytime soon, and Ben doesn’t want to change that. 

“Who are you?” Ben mumbles in an exhale, words barely even audible. His hand instinctively reaches down to his dick to relieve the pressure building there as he stares at her. Stars, he feels like a fucking predator. But he can’t help it that the Force keeps dumping his dream girl in his bed. 

She shifts, molding herself further into his cushiony bed, a hint of a smile crossing her sleepy face. “Ben,” she exhales. 

His eyes go wide, and his grip on his dick tightens. It twitches. Did she just say…?

Her eyes never open before she fades away seconds later; she doesn’t get to see a stunned Ben laying next to her with his mouth left hanging open and his dick hard in an unmoving hand. 

\----

“Sir, the droid was spotted heading west. With a girl.”

She’s here. He knows it. 

Ben can feel the current running strong in the back of his mind, relentless as ever with a fierceness that he’s never felt before. He waves off the stormtroopers and heads towards the forest, letting the Force in just enough to guide him where he needs to go. He doesn’t think twice as he walks, knowing with every step that she is nearer and nearer. 

He’s about to get some answers. Girl of his daydreams no longer. 

He hears her before he sees her, knowing she’s somewhere in those rocks not only because of the Force pushing him closer and closer, but from her own ragged breathing as well. He’s heard that breathing before, when she’s running, or dragging a bag of parts up a hill. It makes his stomach flip, knowing she’s mere feet away now. 

In a step of courage, Ben rounds the rocks, finally seeing her. 

It is her. Of course it’s her. It had to be her. 

She looks terrified, this girl, and Ben remembers that he’s not Ben Solo, with a heart beating hard in his chest with nothing but hope. He’s Kylo Ren, hidden by a cloak and a mask, here to take no prisoners and have no mercy. 

He hates it. 

But there’s nothing he can do about it, not in this moment. The girl is already afraid, and she’s shooting at him with a blaster that she holds so uneasily, he can tell she’s never had to bear a real weapon before. Kylo Ren ignites his saber, and he steps towards her. 

He deflects the shots she fires at him easily, waving them off as he continues to advance towards her. She scrambles up the rocks, and he has no choice but to follow. A desperate look takes over her face as his deflections grow increasingly aggressive. She knows she couldn’t beat him. 

She won’t have to. Ben doesn’t want to fight her. He wants to love her. But he can’t. He’s Kylo Ren, and he can’t do anything but fight, it seems. 

It’s suddenly all too much, and Ben feels himself explode. He throws out a hand, desperate to hold onto the girl, the first thing that’s given him hope, that’s given him anything to look forward to, to feel good about, in… years, probably. He freezes her in place, watching as she trembles, looking more afraid than ever. 

He doesn’t want to hurt her. But he needs her to stay. He so desperately needs her to stay. 

Walking towards her, Ben takes a closer look at the mystery girl. Three buns of dark brown hair, dirty sun-faded tunic, and those damn eyes. The eyes he hasn’t been able to forget, not since they met his own in his ship so many weeks ago. 

“The girl I’ve heard so much about,” he mumbles, pacing closer to her. The girl who’s been dancing through my dreams, been sleeping in my bed, been occupying my mind and leaving room for nothing else, he thinks. He circles around her, keeping her held tight in place in the Force, making sure she can’t escape, can’t fade away. 

She has no idea that it’s him who she locked eyes with on his ship that night, has no idea that he’s been watching her for weeks. He can’t let her know. She’ll get scared. She’ll leave. He has to hold his ground as Kylo Ren. 

“The droid…” he says, reminding himself why she’s here and bringing the saber to her neck for good measure. He won’t actually hurt her. Never will. “Where is it?”

\----

Ben Solo walks out of the forest carrying the girl of his dreams in his arms. 

In another life, it could be the greatest moment of his life. A wedding, maybe. Or something. 

He tries to put it out of his mind that he’s bringing her to a First Order interrogation room. And that she’s unconscious. And that he’s the one who made her that way. 

In any case, she’s safe in his arms. He glances down at her. Her peaceful expression mirrors how she looks when she’s deep in sleep in his bed. He tightens his grip with the leather gloves, just a bit, holding onto the one glimmer of hope he’s found in the universe. 

He wonders what her name is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the love on chapter 1 you guys :) it really made me so eager to keep writing, and I cannot wait to keep going with this fic! 
> 
> next up, we are going... AU BABY!
> 
> Comments are always appreciated more than you know.


	3. Adore You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A)dore (U).... get it.... AU time bbs

“Dude, I don’t think I want to go out tonight,” Rey grumbled to Rose, pulling a tiny tank top over her head, nonetheless. 

“Don’t say that! It’s going to be great, I promise!” Rose said, buzzing around their apartment, filling glasses with rum and Coke and plugging her phone into their speaker. She came over to where Rey stood in front of the mirror and pressed a glass of the dark liquid into her hand, Pitbull blaring in the background. 

“I don’t know,” Rey mumbled, adjusting the hem of her black tank and shimmying her jeans up a bit. She took a sip of the drink and winced, Rose spinning around behind her all the while. 

“Why don’t you wanna go?” Rose asked, genuinely curious. As genuine as she could be while laying flat on her back on their couch with her legs up in the air, doing some kind of interpretive dance to Hotel Room Service. 

“Um,” Rey had to think on it for a second, trying to pin down exactly why everything in her being was begging her to get back into bed and trade out her push up bra and denim for flannel pajamas instead. “I guess I’m just still feeling raw. You know, from everything.”

She could practically feel Rose rolling her eyes. She almost rolled her eyes herself. She knew exactly what her best friend was about to say. 

“REY,” Rose said, all humor gone from her tone. She rolled off the couch and came up behind Rey, pressing her hands onto Rey’s shoulders and going onto her tiptoes to look into the mirror over Rey’s shoulder. “You need to stop using a breakup that happened FOUR MONTHS ago as an excuse for everything. Maybe if he had been, like, the one great love of your life or something, sure. But not when I know for a fact you didn’t actually care all that much that he dumped you.”

Rose was right, and Rey knew it. When Poe had dumped her and subsequently hooked up with their friend Finn a week later, Rey had been devastated. But… not in the way she felt she should’ve been. She knew it wasn’t personal; she just didn’t have a penis. She only cried for one night, which Rose numbed right up with a steady stream of comedy movies and ice cream. In reality, she was mostly disappointed to not have the convenience of a boyfriend anymore: a built-in date to weddings, someone to pick up takeout and eat with her after work, and, of course, the sex. The sex with Poe was pretty great. 

As great as the sex was, though, Rey always knew something was missing. She never felt the fireworks that all those movies Rose loved told you you were supposed to feel when you kissed the love of your life. And little things that he did annoyed her in a way she knew she wouldn’t be able to deal with long-term. Like not rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Is it really that hard?

The devastation of the breakup mostly came from being twenty-five and having to start all over. Rey was feeling old. She didn’t have the energy she used to, not like Rose still had, she couldn’t muster up the energy to go out on a Friday night after working all week. Things with Poe hadn’t been great, but they had been good. Rey felt kind of hopeless thinking about the odds of finding great. 

“You’re right,” Rey mumbled, lifting a hand to squeeze one of Rose’s. “I’m just kind of tired is all. But,” she said, turning around to face Rose, who was looking more and more excited that she was turning Rey to the dark side, “you know what time it is!”

“RALLY TIME!” they both screamed, jumping up and down a bit. Rally time had been their thing in college when they would go on day-long drinking binges on football days (not that they cared about the football), starting at the frat house and ending up in some club downtown, if their fake IDs made the cut that weekend. Rallying became the motto not only for keeping the drinking going, but for keeping the  _ fun _ alive. Rally time was important. Rey knew what she was getting herself into when she proclaimed it. 

“Oh thank god,” Rose said, dropping Rey’s hand and twirling back around the living room. “I  _ so _ didn’t want to go alone. Armitage and Phasma are chill, but weirdly intimidating. I feel like I can’t totally dance around them. But if you’re there, that’s another story!”

Rey chuckled, unplugging the hair dryer and putting some hoops in her ears. “Yeah, they’re kind of cold. Anyone else that we know of going to be there?”

Rose was texting now, barely listening to Rey. “Oh my god, look, Kaydel is at that club we’ve always wanted to go to! Oh, I wonder if she can get us on a list.”

“That’d be cool,” Rey said, plopping onto the couch and chugging her drink with a newfound resolve, determined that if she must go out, she must be absolutely smashed. She grabbed her own phone off the couch. No texts. Hmph. 

Rose was still furiously texting away, so Rey looped back to her room to grab a hair tie. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Not bad. Wearing all black gave her intense confidence. She swiped on some lip gloss and was ready to go. Her room was a damn mess, but she looked good.

“Okay Rose, shots and then let’s go. It’s late!” Rey yelled down the hall. Shots, that got Rose’s attention. 

“Ooo, yes, Rey! That’s the spirit! The good stuff? In honor of your debut back on the town?” Rose was already pulling shot glasses from where they stored them on top of the fridge. 

“Yeah, sure!” Rose poured limoncello right up the rims and gave Rey a big smile. 

“Thanks for coming, Rey. You won’t regret it!” Rose said, cheersing her tiny shot glass to Rey’s. 

“Couldn’t leave you hanging like that, Rose! We’re gonna have fun.” They threw back the shots right as the beat dropped in Timber. 

Rose grabbed the glasses and put them in the sink. “Sorry I was distracted before, what were you asking?”

“Oh, nothing,” Rey said, calling an Uber. “Just who else is gonna be there, that’s all.”

“Hm, so I know Armie and Phasma are joining us for sure, maybe we’ll see Kaydel if she can get us into the club. Oh! And Ben Solo might be there. But that’s it, I think.”

Rey’s stomach dropped all the way down to the first floor of the building when she heard his name. She willed her cheeks not to flush. 

“Oh, yeah? Ben’s going?” She tried to sound as casual as possible, but she knew it came out weird. Rose didn’t seem to notice. 

“I know, crazy, right? I feel like I haven’t seen him out in ages, but Phas told me she was trying to convince him. And when I told her you were coming, she said that would be convincing enough.” Rose winked. 

It was common knowledge that Ben was in love with Rey. 

And Rey… well, Rey had been in a committed relationship. 

Suffice to say, Poe didn’t like Ben very much. 

Rey swallowed and forced out a laugh. “Well, Uber’s here! Get your keys, let’s go!”

The two girls hustled down four flights of stairs into the warm summer night. Rey had a feeling she was getting herself into a lot more than she had bargained for. 

\----

“Dance with me, Rey.”

The outstretched hand hung in front of her like a promise, waiting to be grabbed onto and held forever. Rey panicked. 

“I don’t dance.”

“Liar.”

“It’s true. Ask Rose. I’m terrible at it.”

“I doubt you’re terrible at anything.”

“Stop, Ben.”

“Stop what?”

“You know.”

“I really don’t.”

“You’re flirting with me.”

“Yes, and?”

“Stop it.”

“Why? You don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Yes, but I… I did.”

“And now you don’t. If I remember correctly, he’s screwing your other best friend now.”

“Oh yeah, and now I  _ really _ want to dance with you.”

Ben huffed. 

“Please.” It crossed his lips softly, tone switching from playful teasing to something more desperate, more visceral. The slightest tremor shook his hand. 

\----

Twenty minutes earlier, Rey and Rose strutted into Maz’s Cantina like they owned the place, surveying the dance floor, bars, and tables scattered around the edges to check the vibes. It was packed, strangers and friends pressed up against each other no matter where you looked. They divided and conquered, Rose setting off to find the gang while Rey beelined to the bar to get vodka sodas for the two of them. 

Rey secured the drinks and looped back to a table on the opposite side of the place where Rose, Armitage, and Phasma were all camped out, along with some other people who looked like they were probably a part of Armitage’s crew. Rose and Phasma were deep in conversation about god knows what already. Rey handed Rose the drink with a smile and nodded to the group. Music blared. She checked her phone. Nothing. How long until it was socially acceptable to leave?

The girls made small talk while bobbing their heads to the music, and Rey caught one of Armie’s wingmen checking her out. She felt a bit nauseous. 

“Did I hear Ben Solo would be making an appearance tonight?” Rey asked Phasma, completely out of things to talk about and unable to shake the nagging feeling that he would be behind her any time she turned around.

Phasma gave her a knowing look. Knowing of what, though? Rey had no idea. She didn’t want to know what Phasma was thinking. 

“I thought I had him convinced, but he ought to have been here by now. I doubt he’s coming at this point.”

Downing the rest of her drink with one huge swallow, Rey made eye contact with Rose, who was talking to some new guy who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Her drink was empty, too. “Another?” Rey mouthed at her. Rose shook her head slightly, nodding towards the guy who would certainly end up fueling Rose for the rest of the night, but mouthing a “thank you” nonetheless. 

“Be right back,” Rey said to Phasma, who was heading off towards the dance floor herself in her silver glittery top. Rey couldn’t imagine ever having the confidence to wear something that eye-catching, but Phasma carried it well, drawing in the gaze of every man she passed. 

Rey elbowed her way across the whole place, through the throng of people dancing with each other, past those hanging around the outskirts watching, and right through the masses trying to catch the bartender’s attention. 

She quickly made eye contact with the woman mixing drinks, who nodded at her for her order. 

“Miller Lite,” Rey said over the hum of the bass. 

“Start a tab, or close out?” the bartender asked, grabbing the cold beer from the fridge. 

“Make it two. On my tab,” a deep voice boomed from somewhere down the bar. 

Rey knew that voice anywhere. Ben Solo had made an appearance after all. 

Rey peered down the bar, noticing him. His massive body was hunched on a bar stool right in the middle, where he looked like he’d been camped out for a while now, three empty beers in front of where he was sitting. How could she have missed him?

She pushed her way through the crowd to get to him. To get to her beer, she reasoned to herself. It was so hot in the bar that her sweaty hair was stuck to the back of her neck, and she wanted that ice cold beer more than anything. 

Yes. She wanted  _ the beer _ more than anything. Nothing else. 

“Thank you,” she said as Ben passed it to her. 

“My pleasure,” he said, sliding off the bar stool. “Want to sit?”

Rey clutched the beer tightly. Her feet did hurt in her heeled boots. “Sure.”

Their chests brushed as Rey scooted onto the seat, shoved into each other by the waves of people around them desperate for drinks. God, he was solid. Solid might not seem like much of an adjective to describe someone, but it was all Rey could think of Ben being. Solid. 

“So, what is Ben Solo doing out on this Friday night?” Rey asked in a teasing tone. 

Ben ran a hand through his thick dark hair and shrugged, grinning down at her like she was the goddamn sun shining after a year of rain. “Honestly? I don’t know. Just had a feeling tonight would be a good night.”

“Really?” Rey asked, raising an eyebrow. “Cause I had the opposite feeling.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yup. Ask Rose. I almost bailed.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Ben said, still with that ridiculous smile on his face. 

It made Rey nervous. The smile, the beers, the flipping and flopping her stomach was doing every time she looked at the smile. She prayed it was dark enough that he couldn’t see the blush she felt rising to her cheeks. 

“So,” she said with a new resolve to have a normal conversation with this friend of a friend. Nothing more. “Tell me about work.”

\----

“Please.”

His open hand was still there, waiting. 

Talking about work can only get you so far. In fifteen minutes they covered all the bases, crazy coworkers, TV shows they were into, some light gossip about their mutual friends, even ordered more beers. The top layers of the onion had been peeled back. It was time to get to the meat of the thing. 

“Ben…” It practically came out a sigh, completely breathless. Rey shook her head, looking at the ground. Her head was feeling looser on its shoulders, vision taking just a second longer to focus than before. 

“Come on, Rey. It’s just a dance, no big deal.” He pleaded with her, practically begging. 

She looked back at him, back into those brown eyes that held the world and then some. She could get lost inside those eyes. And with the way he was looking back at her, she could tell he felt the same. The same and then some. 

“Just one dance?”

His eyes crinkled at the edges as the grin stretched wider across his face. “Just one dance.”

Rey sighed. One dance didn’t mean anything. It was just a dance. 

She placed her hand in his, and he squeezed it tight, sending a jolt of electricity straight through her. “Okay.”

\----

It wasn’t just one dance. 

The bar was so dark, the drinks were so cold, the music was so loud, and Ben was so… Ben. 

He had grabbed hold of her hand like a lifeline and pulled her through the crowds of people, right into the middle of the dancefloor. Rey looked around, making sure no one they knew could see them. 

A song with some blaring electric guitar was playing, and Rey had no idea what to do with her body. Ben squeezed the hand that connected them tight and started headbanging. 

“Stop,” Rey said, pushing his chest with the hand that held her beer and letting out a laugh despite herself. She felt awful tense, her mind rebelling against the alcohol loosening her up as she glanced around to ensure that no one was looking at the two of them. Everyone else was immersed in their own worlds though, leaving Ben and Rey to fall headfirst into their own world, which was as large as the three cubic feet they occupied. 

The guitar song ended and transitioned into something more sultry, something with a bit of a slower beat. Ben pulled Rey closer into him. She could feel the heat radiating off his chest. He swayed side to side, and Rey wondered where he had gotten such natural rhythm.

She kept her vision strictly on his chest as they moved back and forth, not quite together in rhythm, refusing to make eye contact with him. 

Something about Ben Solo scared Rey. Not in the way murderers are scary - she wasn’t afraid he would hurt her or anything, god no. It was something in the way he always had a smile waiting for her and for no one else in the room. Something in the way she had felt the first time she met him, goosebumps shooting up her entire arm that first time they shook hands at a party. Something in his eyes. They were always so open, so readable. 

It was something about the way he loved her that terrified her. 

He had said it only once before, at a party of Hux’s that winter, while she and Poe were still together, but only just barely. He was blackout drunk, absolutely obliterated, lying on the cold bathroom floor in Hux’s granite-covered apartment. Rey had followed him, feeling some gravitational pull to go wherever he was going, knowing something wasn’t quite right. 

“I’ll be right back,” she’d murmured to Poe, giving his arm a squeeze before rounding the corner down the hall and shutting the bathroom door behind her upon finding Ben in that state. 

“Hey,” she had said, kneeling down beside him. She had touched his cheek, pushing that mop of dark hair out of his face. She was pretty drunk herself, blaming the way her hand caressed his cheek on that. 

His dark eyes had lit up with recognition when they met Rey’s, and a crooked grin crossed his face. “Hey,” he said, turning slightly to lean in to her touch. 

“You alright?” Rey asked lightly, thumb running up and down his cheekbone. 

“Am now,” he mumbled, slurring his speech. They’d known each other for about a year, and every interaction had been while drunk. None like this before, though. 

Rey had tried to stifle her grin, tried to remember Poe, lovely Poe, slightly distant Poe, making small talk just a few feet away. She couldn’t. A smile broke her face wide open, looking down at Ben with the messed up hair and the blurry eyes and the red-tipped ears. He looked like a kid laying on that bathroom floor, and something about it made her entire heart nearly burst. 

“You gonna get up and come back to the party?” she’d asked, threading her fingers lightly through his hair. 

“Mmm,” he groaned, shaking his head lightly. “More comfortable here.” He paused. “With you.”

Rey sighed, pulling her hand back. He intercepted it, holding it tight between his own two hands. He lifted her hand up, studying it like a map to a new world, tracing it with his fingers and turning it over. 

“What are you doing?” Rey asked quietly, still incapable of biting back her smile. 

A long pause hung between them until Ben dropped her hand down onto his chest, covering it with his own hands. He stared at her then, looking like he was trying to memorize every bit of her face. She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. “Yes?” she asked, still waiting for her answer. 

“I love you,” Ben said through a hazey smile. 

Rey’s eyes had gone completely wide, and smile had turned into a slack-jawed look of shock. Her heart skipped probably six beats as her breathing hitched. 

“You’re drunk,” she said, trying to recover as quickly as possible, shaking her head and trying to bring the playful grin back to her face. 

“Still,” was all Ben had to say to that. 

Rey got to her feet, taller than Ben for the only time in her life. “You’ll be okay in here? Won’t drown in your own vomit or anything?”

Ben just shook his head as he watched her leave, softly shutting the door behind herself. She leaned back against it for a few seconds to even out her breathing and blink the tears from her eyes. 

And then she had gone back to the party, where she stood with her boyfriend’s arm draped around her for the rest of the night. She didn’t see Ben again that night. 

Not in person, at least. She saw him every time she closed her eyes when Poe fucked her that night, both coming harder than they ever had before. 

\----

And now she was dancing with him. 

She wondered if he remembered anything from that night. Probably not. 

Ben spun her around and Rey let herself feel undone for a moment, hair swishing around as she spun, his other hand finding her waist. 

Rey downed the rest of her beer in one huge gulp and put the bottle on the ground, where many seemed to be accumulating. Ben’s massive hand still cradled her side, spanning so much of her body that she felt miniscule. When she stood back up, he was behind her, closing the distance between them until he was flush against her back. 

“Ben,” Rey mumbled, feeling him move to the music behind her. She didn’t want to let herself get swept away, but by god, he was making it difficult. 

“Just move with me,” he murmured into her ear, leaning down to say it. His breath was hot in her ear, and it sent desire shooting down into her core. A warmth blossomed between her legs, igniting something that had been lying dormant for so long. 

And so she moved with him. His hands pressed against her waist, thumbs circling her hip bones in soft motions. He rocked her back and forth, his hips innately connected to hers, making figure eight movements that made Rey shut her eyes and fall completely into the music. Every so often he would tighten his grip on her and lean back just slightly, creating a friction between them that felt so good,  _ too _ good. 

Every second that passed, every song that passed with his hips flush against hers, with his hands drifting up and down her body, Rey felt herself slipping further and further away. 

When he ran his hands down her thighs, sneaking in slightly toward the heat that was building between them, Rey heard herself sigh. For a moment, she hoped he hadn’t heard it above the music. But then… she hoped he did. 

When he ran his hands up over her stomach, she leaned back against his chest, letting her body weight fall against him as he cradled her, moving her in perfect rhythm. 

When his hands drifted up to graze her breasts, thumbs pressuring her nipples ever so slightly, Rey forgot about anything else. Forgot about Poe, the breakup, the shitty past few months, her friends somewhere in this same bar. All that mattered was Ben, and her, and this dance, and the way they were moving together. Nothing else. 

One of Rey’s hands shot up into his hair, fingers threading though it like they had months ago on Hux’s bathroom floor. It was so soft, so so soft, and Rey wondered how she had gone so long without touching it. She pulled Ben down closer to her to get more of a handful of the stuff. He eagerly complied, bending his head down to nuzzle into her neck. She felt him breathing there, right against her quickening pulse. 

His lips pressed into her neck, and a sharp breath left Rey’s lips, her eyes fluttering closed. “Ben,” she mumbled, for the millionth time. Seemed like all she was capable of saying anymore was his name. 

His mouth opened slightly, and his tongue pressed against her skin, tasting her for the first time. A moan vibrated in Ben’s throat, making Rey squeeze her thighs together as the vibration coursed through her entire body. He traced all the way up her neck, right behind her ear, nipping the lobe between his teeth. Rey couldn’t help but smile, mind completely blank save for the sensations he was shooting through her. She placed her hand on top of the one still on her hip, lacing her fingers through his. 

Suddenly he was gone from behind her, and Rey panicked for a moment, eyes shooting open. In an instant, he was spinning her with the hand connected to hers, and she threw her head back laughing as the room blurred around her. 

Ben pulled Rey into his chest when she was facing him, and she lost her balance, grabbing onto his soft cotton shirt to stay afloat. His hands laced behind her back, lingering right over her ass as he looked down into her eyes, a grin teasing the edges of his mouth. 

Looking into those eyes filled with nothing but pure worship for her, Rey made a decision. She kissed him. 

Ben’s lips were frozen for an instant beneath hers, but he quickly moved with her, tightening his grip around her and pulling her against his chest. The dance floor was alive around them, but they were still, a photograph of a moment in time, a moment that would change everything. 

Rey nearly laughed out loud, thinking about how just a few hours ago she’d thought she would never find anything great. With Ben’s mouth against hers, the thought of settling for good vanished from her mind completely. 

Ben opened his mouth against hers, sliding his tongue against her bottom lip before biting down lightly on it. Rey sighed against his mouth, feeling him grin. She kissed him hard at that, tongue sliding into his mouth like it was meant to be there, like it knew every inch by memory. One of his huge hands cradled her neck, tipping her head back as he worshipped her open lips, while the other drifted down to her ass, kneading it in a way that made Rey worry she was going to start dripping through her jeans. She pressed closer against the hardness she felt against her front, knowing he felt the same. 

Something in Rey’s brain turned on when the song ended, and she pulled away from him. God knows how long they had been making out, the space around them growing wider as people drifted away from  _ that  _ PDA couple. 

Not that they were a couple. 

She looked up at him and couldn’t help but grin at the way his lips shone with her strawberry lip gloss. He smiled back down at her, and as the beat of the next song kicked in, he started to dance. 

Rey laughed out loud at the way he jumped around like a kid, hair flopping and limbs flailing. He grabbed her hands and made her join in, and they both sang along at the top of their lungs. How she could go from being ready to fuck him on this dance floor to actually dancing like they were at prom, she had no idea. 

The song ended, and people started to trickle out, the crowd thinning out around them. Rey looked around, still swaying against Ben with his hands never leaving her waist, and for a moment, her heart stopped. Rose was staring at her with a slack-jawed smile. Rey checked to see if Ben noticed, but he hadn’t, his face buried in her neck pressing kisses against her. 

“I’m sorry,” Rey mouthed, having no idea why she was apologizing. She wove a hand into Ben’s hair to keep him right where he was, moving up and down her neck, so that he wouldn’t look at Rose. 

“Oh my god, don’t apologize!” Rose mouthed back, utter excitement written all over her face. “I’ll text you,” she said, eagerly motioning to her phone. Rey just nodded in reply, unable to keep from giggling. She watched as Rose and her boyfriend of the night left, realizing that fewer and fewer people were in the bar. 

“Hey, Ben,” she said, running her hands up and down his back.

“Mmph,” he mumbled, pressing kisses against her jaw.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” she asked, listening to the words cross her lips and feeling shocked at herself. 

He immediately pulled back, looking into her eyes through the sweaty strands of hair that dangled over his face. “Yeah?” he asked, with all the eagerness of a newborn puppy. 

“Yeah,” Rey nodded, feeling supremely sure of herself in that moment. “Let’s go,” she said, lacing her hand into his and pulling them off the dance floor. 

As soon as they made it out of the bar, gulping down the fresh air of the summer night, Ben scooped her up into his arms. 

“Ben, what are you doing?” Rey laughed, arms tight around his neck. He glowed in the moonlight with a thin layer of sweat that she knew covered her whole body, too. 

“What does it look like? I’m carrying you,” he said. 

“All the way home?” 

“Yeah.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Am not.”

“Do you even know where I live?”

“Oh. No.” He knelt over to put her down. “You lead the way.”

Rey laced her hand into his again, pulling him around the corner that wasn’t necessarily on the way home, but got them away from the people milling outside the bars. 

As soon as they were out of sight, she turned to press him against the brick wall, kissing him hard. His hands were all over her body all at once, memorizing it the way he had once so intently memorized her face. His mouth moved over hers like heaven, and all the lust that been brewing in Rey before nearly reached a boiling point. 

She pulled back from the kiss and pressed her forehead against his, catching her breath. She felt his chest rise and fall under her hands, feeling the muscles come alive beneath her. 

“Hey, Rey?” Ben murmured, scooping her up to carry her again, but this time with her legs wrapped around his waist. He turned to press her against the wall, leaning back to look her full in the face. 

“Yeah?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and grinning at him. 

“I know you don’t want me to say I love you,” Ben said softly. Rey’s heart skipped about eight beats. 

“Um,” she said, suddenly confused, feeling her head spin with the alcohol, or from the way he knocked all the breath right out of her gut. 

“Do you remember that night?” she asked, sounding as breathless as she felt. 

Ben just nodded. 

“I won’t say I love you tonight,” he said, sounding more sure of himself. “How about... I adore you. Better?”

Rey felt her face blush, mouth spreading into a smile.

“Better,” she replied, kissing him lightly. 

“You don’t have to say nothing,” he breathed against her lips. “Just let me adore you tonight.”

“Yes,” Rey nodded against him. He hoisted her up, and she pressed herself against the friction growing between their jeans, kissing him hard. 

“I think,” he said between kisses, “adoring you- is the only thing- I’ll ever do.”

Rey felt every bit of anything that had ever held her back from him wash away. In the summer night, pressed against a brick wall under a sky bursting with stars, she knew it was all true. And she just might love him, too. Just might have loved him since the day they first met. Just might have loved him on a bathroom floor with her hand pressed between his. Just might love him right now, with his smiling lips weaving in and out of hers. 

But for tonight, she’ll settle for adoring him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was not supposed to be this long, but my lord, it really is this long, huh? 
> 
> i hope you enjoy <3 thank you for the loooove so far, so excited to keep writing these stories!


	4. To Be So Lonely

Ben swirled the ounce of bourbon left in his glass and glanced at the near-empty bottle. One more drink couldn’t hurt. 

He sunk back into his leather couch with a full glass in hand and checked his phone. 2:32 am. No messages. Grunting, he threw the phone back down into the couch and took a deep gulp of the liquor, savoring the burning sensation in his throat. He could hardly keep his vision straight enough to watch the football game quietly playing on the TV as he sat alone in his apartment. 

He grabbed his phone again, this time scrolling through his contacts. His finger hesitated over her name, but only for a second. 

The ringing seemed to echo all around the room as he waited, dropping the phone into his lap and staring at the ceiling, listening to it ring. It rang and it rang and it rang. 

“Fuck,” Ben mumbled as the telephone lady told him to leave his message after the beep. He fumbled to hang up before the message could begin. He just missed it, realizing he had left a second of grumbling as a message on her phone. 

He downed the rest of the drink, cursing under his breath. “Fucking stupid,” he mumbled, easing himself down onto his back. He laid on the couch staring at the ceiling, cursing himself and cursing _ her _ , until he dozed off into a drunken sleep. 

The vibration of his phone on the leather couch woke him up like a gunshot. Blinking his eyes open, he checked to see who the fuck it could be at whatever time in the morning it was. 

Rey. 

Ben’s heart stopped beating. A thumb swiped across the screen. The phone was next to his ear. It was him answering, but he felt so out of body that he couldn’t quite be sure he hadn’t been taken over by some alternate being that was answering the phone for him. 

“Hello?” he said, clutching the phone tight and realizing he sounded absolutely wasted, slurring even that one word. One fucking word and he was already ruining it. Fuck.

“You called?”

Her voice was so achingly familiar and so incredibly far away that it felt like a punch to the gut. That voice was supposed to be whispering filth into his ear as the girl attached to it rode his dick like her life depended on it. It wasn’t supposed to be filtered through a cell phone, barely rising above a cacophony of background noise and static. 

“Where are you?” Ben asked, stumbling through his words. He wiped at his eyes with his free hand, trying to wake the fuck up and sound at least halfway sober. 

“What’s it to you?” she asked, a wicked edge to her voice. No mercy in that voice. Not that he deserved it. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Ben trailed off, breathing heavily. Every time he heard her voice a knife twisted in his gut, leaving him aching, bleeding, desperate. 

“What do you want, Ben?”

What did he want? Goddamn, everything. 

“Come over,” Ben practically growled into the phone, clutching it to his ear with both hands. Bourbon burned in his stomach, making it turn. Or maybe it was hearing her voice that made his stomach turn. Knowing how she felt about him now, after everything. 

“Fuck you, Ben.”

She hung up. 

Ben screamed, tossing his phone across the room with a vicious noise crossing his lips as he pitched it. The digital clock in the kitchen beeped, 3 am. 

A primal need to  _ smash _ rose in Ben’s chest, making it heave. He lifted himself off the couch and stumbled through the doorway of his room. Ripping his closet open, Ben yanked clothes from their hangers, tossing everything in his way behind him to get to what he knew was in a back corner, out of sight but never out of mind. 

In an old Adidas shoebox, they sat there, an entire stack of framed photos of them. Ben and Rey in the mountains, Ben and Rey at her college graduation, Ben and Rey on his twenty-sixth birthday. Ben felt like someone had poured gasoline all over the fire that had been burning in his chest all night. He grabbed all the framed photographs out of the box, bringing them to his big, empty living room. 

It started with one. He chucked the first frame to the floor as hard as he could, sending shattering glass shooting out into the room, into the kitchen, probably all the way down the hall into his fucking bedroom with its big, empty king bed. 

It felt damn good. 

His hands were practically a conveyor belt, grabbing and smashing picture after picture, watching the frames break apart and the glass shatter and the photos rip as he tossed them with as much force as he could muster. At some point, he realized he was screaming as he did it. Deep, guttural noises that hardly sounded human. The sounds filled the room, his bodily rage spilling out in every way it possibly could, with screams and tears and raging arms. Torn up photographs and shards of glass and splinters of wood covered his entire living room once there was nothing else left to destroy. 

Ben sunk to his knees. He felt sharp pieces of glass sinking into his legs and didn’t care, didn’t register the pain. His entire body shook in shuttery breaths as he leaned over, letting his head fall into his bloody hands, fingers weaving into his hair to hold onto it, steadying him. Sobs wracked his convulsing body, grotesque noises that filled the empty room. 

Everything was broken. All of it. 

When they’d broken up last year, Ben had been okay. Really. He’d hardly cried, hating her so much that the only tears that made their way down his face were out of pure rage. She’d hated him, too, then. They’d been so eaten raw from jealousy and spite, constant jabs at each other that added up and left them bleeding out. The warfare ending was a blessing, Ben knew it was. He was relieved, glad to be rid of her. Got rid of any trace of her at the apartment for the sake of the many girls he’d brought home since. 

But it was when the steady stream of girls made their way out the door the next morning, or even in the dwindling hours of the night, that it hit him. An aching in his heart that he just couldn’t shake. It weighed him down, making it harder each day to walk, to sleep, to breathe. A hole the shape of Rey tore through his walls, making him more angry at her than ever before. The loneliness, the missing her, burned worse every day in an all-consuming fire. 

How the fuck did he let her do this to him?

That was all Ben could think, rocking back and forth on the hardwood floor until his body ached. He whimpered as the pain in his shins and knees began to register, hot tears rolling down his face and falling into perfect circles on the ground. He stared at them, clutching his arms tighter around himself. The kitchen clock ticked the seconds, minutes, by. 

Suddenly, Ben looked up, eyes wide. Something in the air was different, he could tell. Something had changed. 

A sharp knock rang through his door. 

Ah. There she was. 

Ben groaned, pressing his fists into the floor to lift his weight up. The pain shot hot and deep up his legs as he rose, the shards of glass pressed into his skin rising with him. 

The knock persisted, aggressive and unrelenting. 

It took him a long time to stand up, huffing with the exertion. His head spun and he blinked hard as he pulled himself up to his full height, leaning a hand against the wall for support. A glance at the kitchen clock told him it was 4 am. He hobbled down the hallway, feeling the blood run down his legs, knowing he was tracking it down the hallway and making it look like a disaster scene. Wasn’t it?

He could practically feel her raising her fist to knock again as he yanked the door open. 

She stood there looking exactly the way he remembered her. Displeased, with her arms crossed over her chest. Face set in a scowl. Black leather jacket over a tank top, hair a mess pulled back in a bun. Makeup smeared, smudged eyeliner making her eyes look even wider, even greener. She must have been clubbing, Ben thought as he looked her up and down. A new favorite pastime of hers. Thanks Instagram for that bit of knowledge.

“What do you want?” Ben growled. He tried to ignore the way his heart skipped a beat at seeing her. The way his stomach wouldn’t stop flipping in circles. The way his hands shook looking at her, here, real, beautiful. 

Rey’s eyes narrowed, her brow drawing in tight. “Don’t fucking play that game with me, Ben.”

So she was still pissed at him, huh. 

“Why’d you call me?” she asked bluntly. 

Ben shifted on his feet, sad and hopeful and angry and resolute all at once. 

“I wanted you to come over.”

Something settled in her eyes, locked on his, half-lidded from the alcohol he could smell on her. Fireball, her favorite for god knows what reason. It was something like defeat, something adjacent to pain, something with just a glimmer of hope. She shifted on her feet, taking the tiniest step towards him and dropping her arms to her sides. 

“Well here I am,” she said, hardly above a whisper.

She was wasted, but that look in her eyes said it all. 

Ben grabbed her by the waist and whirled her inside the doorway, slamming the door shut behind her. He tightened his grip on her, digging his fingers into her skin as he hoisted her up and pressed her against the door, her legs immediately wrapping around his waist. 

“Say yes,” he breathed into her neck, taking a deep inhale to soak in the smell of her. God, he missed the smell of her neck. It was like a shot of dopamine, straight into his veins, making him buzz with an energy he hadn’t felt in so long, too long. 

Her hands were weaved in his dark hair, pulling it tight as her legs tightened around him. 

“Yes,” she whispered, pulling his mouth to hers. 

Their lips met, desperate and greedy. Ben groaned into her mouth immediately at the feel of her lips weaving in and out of his. He could feel her grin as he pressed his tongue into her, tasting Fireball and sugar in her mouth. Her fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him even closer as he worshiped her wide open lips.

He had missed her so fucking much. 

Her tongue ran across his bottom lip, making its way into his mouth with a sense of urgency. She was being sloppy, like she always was when she was drunk. Not that Ben was anywhere near sober either, desperately taking as much of her as he could get. He leaned back to press his hips in closer to hers, the friction between them offer the slightest relief to his growing erection. She lifted her waist up slightly, a gutteral noise rising in her throat as she grinded against his dick. 

Ben dug his fingers into her ass, god, that perfect ass, and lifted her off the wall, turning to carry her down the hall. She stayed wrapped around him like some kind of small animal, pressing kisses into his neck, his jaw, his cheekbones. When she ran her tongue all the way from his collarbone to his earlobe, he nearly came. 

He rounded the corner to his bedroom and practically threw her down onto the bed, pouncing on top of her. She grabbed at the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head in an instant and running her hands up and down his chest. She hummed a bit under her breath, biting at his shoulder. Ben pushed her back down in the pillows. 

“You,” he mumbled hazily, pulling at the sides of her jacket. Rey understood, wriggling her arms out and tossing it to the side. Ben immediately yanked her tank top, dampy and sweaty from the club, over her head. He had to pause for a moment to look at her. 

Her tits were perfect, goddamn, so perfect, he thought to himself as he kneaded them gently in his massive palms. But even better was the look on her face. She lay back against the pillows in a contented haze, grinning and letting her head loll to the side as she revelled in their lust. Ben leaned in to kiss her exposed neck, biting and sucking just enough to know he’d leave a mark. Enough to make sure she knew he was his. Even now. 

He made his way down her body, reveling in the way she writhed underneath him. One hand dipped beneath her waistband as he sucked on a nipple. He smiled against her breast in his mouth as he felt how wet she was. She shimmied her pants off in a millisecond. 

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Rey moaned, grabbing his head and lifting it up. His fingers stayed right where they were, rubbing circles against her clit that made her move beneath him. 

“What?” Ben mumbled, dropping his chin to her chest and staring into her narrowed eyes, swirling his fingers around in the way he knew she couldn’t resist. 

“What are you smiling about?” she asked, breath hitching halfway through. 

“That I can still make you feel like this,” he said, flashing a wicked grin and dipping two fingers inside of her. Her hips immediately bucked up into him, and she threw her head back into the pillows, moaning. 

“Arrogant son of a bitch,” she said under her harried breathing, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, holding him tight. 

“Hmph,” Ben mumbled, pumping in and out of her, rubbing her clit with his thumb. She was soaking wet, and he could hear her heart racing through her chest. 

“Ben,” Rey groaned, pulling his face up to hers with a yank of his hair. He grunted from the pain, his dick growing harder with it. Her lips messily made their way to his, kissing him like her life depended on it. He increased his pace in her, and she bit down hard on his lower lip. 

“Oh, Ben,” she whispered against his lips. Her hips buckled in the way he knew they did before she was about to come. He quickened his pace, bringing her over the edge. Her head flew back into his pillows, arms tight around his neck. She rode him in waves, arching her back to press her chest against in heavy breaths. 

He kissed up and down her neck, licking the salty sheen of sweat that covered her. It tasted better than any alcohol, better than the bourbon that had gotten him here in the first place. He nuzzled into her, lips greedily soaking her in, fingers moving slower, slower, slower, until they came to a stop. Rey lay with her eyes closed, panting. 

Ben pressed his face into her hair, taking a deep breath of her honey scented shampoo. Rey traced up and down his bare back with gentle, fluttering fingers. 

“Baby,” she breathed. Ben’s entire body stiffened. 

“Don’t call me baby again,” he said, pulling his head away from hers. The constant fire burning in his chest picked up, flaming brighter than it had all night. “Don’t you fucking call me baby.”

Rey’s brow knotted in concern, eyes widening. 

“I don’t know what you think this is, but I’m not your baby,” Ben growled, pressing his fists into the pillow on either side of her head, holding himself right over her to watch her face as he said it. “I’m not your  _ fucking _ baby.”

A stunned expression crossed her face for an instant before it set into something angrier. “Jealous boy,” she growled, reaching down to press her hand against his sweatpants, palming his dick over them. 

“You’re so fucking bitter,” she said, reaching into his waistband and grabbing hold of his dick. Ben gritted his teeth, jaw stiffening as he tried desperately to hold his breathing steady. She used her other hand to pull his head down, whispering in his ear now.

“Because we broke up, and I’m doing just fine. And look at you. You’re  _ not, _ ” she said, giving his balls a vicious squeeze that made him falter, a strangled sound leaving his throat. “Calling me at two in the morning, fucking desperate.”

Ben’s mind was blank, an anxiety creeping up the back of his neck as he listened to her words and tried to ignore the feeling of her hand moving treacherously up and down, up and down. 

“You can make me come, but you can’t admit you’re sorry,” Rey whispered in his ear, nipping at his earlobe and biting down just a little too hard. 

He was about to come, leaning into her hand as she quickened her pace. No comebacks, no apologies, no words crossed his mind. All of it was completely blank; the only thing left was her. 

And then she stopped. Rey rolled out from underneath him before he knew what was happening. She grabbed her tank top off the floor and yanked it over her head in record speed, glancing back at him as she grabbed her jacket from the foot of the bed. Ben lay completely still, stunned. With a dick throbbing, desperate for her touch, and a heart filled with even more desperation. 

Rey stared back at him with that same look in her eyes from before. Pained. Angry. Regret? Sadness. Hope. 

Her eyes narrowed. 

“Pathetic.” She practically spit it at him, rounding the doorway, knowing perfectly well the way to let herself out. 

Ben threw himself back against his pillows, staring at the ceiling. 

_ Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.  _

He’d fucked it all up. Again. Everything. She was the devil, absolutely, but he still felt like everything was his fault. It probably was. All of it. 

He pumped his dick in his hand, finishing what she started and groaning as he came all over himself. Only then did he realize he never heard his apartment door open and close. 

Ben rose from the bed, pain shooting up and down his legs as he remembered the glass embedded in them from earlier. The blood was dried, dark red streaks up and down his sweatpants. She hadn’t seemed to notice. She’d made him forget about it altogether, too. 

Rounding the corner, Ben stopped in his tracks at the sight that met him. Rey was frozen in the middle of his living room. On her knees, in the middle of the mess he had created. Clutching a torn photo. He knew which one it was, even from across the room. Her graduation. Their best day, without a doubt. 

Her face was wet with tears. The eyes that met him made his heart break. Glossy and pained and terrified and heartbroken. 

He took a few steps towards her, sinking down into the couch to face her where she sat. 

“Ben… your legs,” she said softly, looking up at him. The photo was still in her delicate hands. 

He missed her. God, he missed her so much. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. “You can’t call me baby, Rey. Not-” he took a shuttery breath. “Not when I’m so lonely.”

Rey looked down at the photo and nodded, tightening her grip on it. “Stay there,” she whispered, getting to her feet. 

Ben lay his head back into the couch, feeling his eyes fill with tears. He shouldn’t have let her see the goddamn mess he’d made. He shouldn’t have called her. He should’ve shut the door tight when she showed up. 

The kitchen clock chimed five in the morning. 

Rey came back a few minutes later, a hot cloth and tweezers in hand. Of course she knew where they were. Used to be her apartment, too. 

She carefully swept away the broken glass on the hardwood floor with her hand before sinking to her knees in front of him. She gently lifted his bloody sweatpants above his knees and started to work. Slowly, she pulled piece after piece of broken glass out of his shins and his knees, eventually wiping them down with the cloth until they were clean and empty. 

“You didn’t have to…” Ben mumbled after the fact, too little, too late. 

Rey just shook her head, standing up only to sit down on the couch next to him. Instinctively, Ben draped an arm around the couch behind her. She leaned towards him, only a bit. 

“I feel it, too,” Rey whispered, not looking at him. They both stared straight out the windows ahead, watching traces of the sun beginning to rise over the city skyline. 

Together, they sat there and watched the sun rise. Two lonely souls, just stubborn enough not to admit they were sorry. Just in love enough to be each other’s 2 AM, each other’s broken glass. 

At some point, Ben and Rey fell asleep in each other’s arms, holding on tight to whatever they had left. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to BE so loooOOneely to BE soooo


End file.
